One Guy. One Bible. One Year. Lots of Crazy.

Main menu

Monthly Archives: September 2012

What You’ve Missed…* Jesus walks on water, which is pretty impressive. Though not as impressive as walkin’ on sunshine.* Jesus creates the world’s first free and instant buffet when He feeds thousands of hungry people, using only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, and everyone eats as much as they want. Twice. I think it’s official. Jesus loves buffets.

Day 283Daily Reading: John 6, Mark 7, Matthew 15

I’m going to just jump right in and talk about zombies and vampires. They’re everywhere these days. Zombies have taken over the world of fiction, and even local news stories in Florida, and vampires have taken over the romantic dreams of teenage girls everywhere. (Vampires that are ridiculously handsome AND they sparkle? It’s like Brad Pitt and My Little Pony had a baby, and now we all have to suffer the unending squeals of teen girls everywhere.)

But this is nothing new. The idea of zombies and vampires can be traced all the way back to the Bible. In fact, Jesus himself talks about both.

Check out what He says.

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man (Jesus) and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” John 6:53-55

Whaaaaaat? Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I get from this is Jesus tells people they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood to gain eternal life. Did I miss something because that sounds all kinds of jacked up. Eating flesh? Drinking blood? That sounds…really weird, really creepy and…cultish.

Jesus, dude, couldn’t you have just stuck with, “Love your neighbor,” or “Peace in the Middle East,” or even a little bit of Bill and Ted wisdom like, “Be excellent to each other?” Why do you have to freak people out, talking about how your followers have to eat your body, and drink your blood? No one wants to hear that.

In fact, after He said this, a lot of His followers turned away. Probably because they weren’t interested in eating other people. This isn’t the Jesus I heard about in Sunday school. I heard about “nice Jesus”, not “B Horror movie Jesus.”

Speaking of which, many of you reading may be Christians and might not find this weird, because you believe in the act of communion, which is how Christians take part in eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood today. It may seem like no big deal. I think that’s because we’ve heard it so much, it no longer has any impact on us.

But think about it. The central figure in your spiritual beliefs, the one you base your lifestyle on, told people they would have to eat His body and drink His blood in order to gain eternal life. Do you actually believe that? If there was a cult that drank the blood of their leader, would you think that was normal? Or would you think they were totally whacked out?

Well I have news for you. That’s exactly what we’re doing as Christians. We’re drinking the blood of our leader, to gain eternal life. That’s the whole myth behind vampires! (It’s just a shame we don’t get super-speed and super-strength as by-products. We also don’t become overly dramatic horrible actors either, so that’s pretty good.)

And don’t forget, we also have stuff in common with flesh-eating zombies. Though, we may not be mindless, I know of a few Christians who drool as much as any good zombie would.

So what’s my point? I think we, as Christians, need to have some perspective of why non-Christians think we might be a little weird. I think we need to be mindful that when we use expressions like, “The blood of the Lamb,” or “Our sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus,” people may be totally weirded out. (Wow, we really do talk about blood a lot don’t we? Yeah…that’s NOT totally creepy at all.)

Okay, okay…so it’s not really that intense. Christians don’t actually drink blood. We drink wine (or grape juice) as a symbol of Jesus’ blood. And we don’t actually eat flesh, but rather bread (or fancy Catholic wafers) as a symbol for flesh. But still…when you really think about it, it’s pretty crazy that we do it at all.

Geez, after all this eating, drinking and horror movie talk, I’m ready for some Jimmy Johns and a Walking Dead Marathon.

What You’ve Missed…
* Jesus gets baptized, gets disciples, and gets the whole Christian party under way (though, no booze of course.)* Jesus changes up that whole “no booze” idea when he kicks a local party into overdrive, turning water into wine, providing free drinks, and a good time (probably too good of a time) for everyone!* Jesus shows He doesn’t just party, and gets down to business healing tons of sick people, casting out tons of demons and raising people from the dead. No big deal.* Local Jewish scholars start to get pissed at how awesome people think Jesus is, and decide the most rational course of action is to plan how to kill Him.

Day 281Daily Reading: Matthew 9-10, Mark 6

Making my way through the New Testament, which I am more familiar with than the Old Testament, I continue to find myself surprised at how crazy a lot of it is. For instance…I always thought of Jesus as a “nice guy”. I thought of Him as calm, rational, and someone who taught about good morals and helped people. He probably spent time playing with abandoned puppies and gave candy to children, always making sure to remind them to brush their teeth. Sounds like a nice guy right?

Well, I’m not so sure. At one point while He’s preparing the disciples to go out and preach, He says some pretty funky stuff for a nice guy.

“If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine.” Matthew 10:37

And right before that, He makes it pretty clear that He’s not here to be a nice guy.

“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword. ‘I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household.” Matthew 10:35-36

Dang. Jesus don’t play! He’s making it pretty clear that He considers a relationship with Him far more important than any other relationship a person can have. When combined with the fact that He said He came to bring a sword, that sweet little nice guy image doesn’t hold up. He’s more like Conan the Barbarian who’s shown up to get shit done.

Jesus isn’t simply trying to sound like a tough guy here. The man lives by His own philosophy. Later in Matthew, Jesus puts some of this crazy thinking into practice.

“As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, His mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. Someone told Jesus, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.’ Jesus asked, ‘Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?’ Then he pointed to His disciples and said, ‘These are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!’” Matthew 12:46-50

Dude…Jesus is rude! Can you imagine if George W. Bush was speaking to a crowd, and someone came up, telling him that Sweet Barbara and Ol’ George Sr., want to talk to him, and he responded by saying, “I don’t know them. I’m the Decider and I’ve decided the people listening to me are my only family.” The media would flip out. His parents would flip out. That’d be a really horrible way to treat his family. And that’s exactly what Jesus does here! His mission is more important to Him than His own mother.

That is not how a nice guy acts. Nice guys love their moms. (Some of them even live with their moms.) Nice guys give their families backstage passes and VIP treatment. Not Jesus. Dude gives his family the cold shoulder without a second thought.

I’m starting to think Jesus might have more in common with Klingons than Mother Theresa.

What You’ve Missed…* The Israelites encounter close to 400 years of radio silence from God when it seems He stops speaking to His people. We can’t go 5 minutes without checking our phones to know what’s going on. They went 400 years. Great, now I just feel pathetic.* The Old Testament is old news. We’ve rounded the bend and now find ourselves in the New Testament.* John the Baptist invents baptism, lives like a sketchy homeless dude in the woods, eats weird hippie food, wears weird hippie clothes, and tells people to prepare for the coming of God. Basically he was like the weirdest dude ever.

Day 267Daily Readings: Mark 1, Luke 1 and 3, John 1, Matthew 1

I remember back when I took Latin in 6th grade, and I heard the myths of the Greek gods and how they would come down to Earth, interact with people, then go back to Mount Olympus. I remember wondering if the Greeks actually believed that stuff, and if they did, wondering how anyone could be so dumb. (Though they were on to something with those togas. They basically walked around in Snuggies. I think it’s worth it to revisit that idea.)

But those Greek legends are just made up stories. Everyone knows they aren’t real. No one actually thinks all-powerful gods, who created everything, come down from their heavenly thrones disguised as people to walk among us. No one who saw Thor thinks it’s real. (Mostly because that guy is waaaay to pretty to be as tough as he is.)

However, the New Testament starts out with this exact premise. God came down from His heavenly throne, in the form of a man, to walk among his own creation. Think about that for a second. If you’re a Christian, it means you might have more in common with the mythology of the ancient Greeks than modern science. It means the idea that the Greeks might have been crazy for believing what they did applies to you and me as well.

“In the beginning, the Word (Jesus) already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him…So the Word became human and made his home among us.” John 1:1-14

So what happens next? An angel visits Mary saying,

“You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus…The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.” Luke 1:29-35

Long story short, Jesus is born. (And if you’re looking for a totally awesome, action-adventure blockbuster version of the story not found in the Bible, check out Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith. He’s the dude who wrote Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and clearly someone I need to be friends with.) So Jesus is born. So God becomes human. So what?

Let’s just stop and think about what this means for a minute. For one thing, it means God pooped. A lot. That’s crazy. It also means he cried as a kid. God cried. It means He had to do chores when He didn’t want to growing up. It also means He was vulnerable to disease, to physical pain and injury and to death. Think about the risk He took in living in such a volatile and dangerous world.

I’m not here to debate the whole virgin birth thing, or to discus whether Jesus was God or a prophet, or neither. I believe He was God. I’m interested in exploring the idea of what that looked like, what it says about the character of a God who behaves in such a way as to intentionally make Himself vulnerable. To lower himself, even to the point of having to live under the restrictions of a human body. It’s crazy.

I can only wonder if God had to learn to share, a value He Himself created. I wonder if He was ever interested in girls. I wonder if He ever had His feelings hurt. I wonder if He loved stories, staying up late, and sneaking out of the house at night. I wonder if He loved playing with fire, and if when He realized that He created fire, He thought, “Dude I’m glad I invented this. Fire is awesome!” (Because it is. I don’t understand how people aren’t pyromaniacs.)

God as man opens up so many ideas. God was hungry. God was tired. God was happy, sad, confused. And the craziest one, God learned from people. Let me repeat that. God. Learned. From. People. That thought alone blows my mind. I’m just glad I wasn’t Jesus’ dad, because I would have taught God to pick His nose, take lots of naps and to make Taco Bell a central part of His diet.